Parking Board Selections Will Go Before Council

January 08, 1991|The Morning Call

A hearing board for Bethlehem residents with complaints about the city's residential permit parking (RPP) program will move closer to reality tonight when City Council considers Mayor Ken Smith's appointments to the parking board of appeals.

Council meets at 7:30 in Town Hall, 10 E. Church St.

The appeals board will consider hardship cases specifically involving the RPP program, and not any other parking regulations or ordinances. Appeals involving parking tickets, vehicle towing or other actions of parking enforcement officers or the authority will not be considered by the appeals board.

Only residents or students who live within a designated RPP zone, or people who care for them or their relatives, who have "been adversely affected" by the program, "causing an extreme hardship," can seek a special dispensation from the board.

The three-member board will have the authority to "affirm, modify or waive" RPP regulations by a two-vote majority.

The RPP ordinance creates permit zones for residents who want them. Two-hour time zones are posted on designated streets so that people who work nearby may no longer park all day in the neighborhood, creating parking shortages for residents. The residents can purchase stickers exempting them from the time zone regulations on the streets where they live.

Smith suggested the creation of an appeals board last year after receiving complaints from residents who feel they've been hurt by the ordinance. He detailed one such case, in which a woman received parking tickets while caring for her elderly mother each day. The street where the mother lives became a permit zone when the RPP program began in September 1989.

Parking Authority Executive Director Michael Spitzer said he had no authority to grant exemptions from any provision of the law. The authority board recommended that council create an appeals board by ordinance, and council passed such legislation on Oct. 2, 1990.

The three-member board has the authority to establish a filing fee of up to $10 for each appeal. Appeals must be made in writing to the parking authority and must be heard within 30 days of their receipt.

Council will consider Smith's appointments of Robert Noctor, Pamela Opp and John Cleveland as appeals board members, and of Francis Knouss and Sherri Jordan as alternates.

Also to be considered are the appointment of Robert Donchez to the tourism authority, and the reappointments of Ronald Donchez to the Bethlehem Authority, Dr. William Morgan to the health board and Gordon Sommers to the zoning board.